Eaten Leaves

Hi I am new to this forum & need some advice. I live in the Redlands in QLD & planted 7 bushes about 2 months ago. They are all flowering & growing well. I have been spraying them regularly for disease & pests however no matter what I spray them with I keep getting eaten leaves. I have searched the bushes for what it could be but NOTHING. The only thing I see from time to time are some type of mid size fly. I can strip the eaten leaves one day & the next there they appear again. It looks like semi circle bites in the leaves eaten from the edges. And no there is no sign of catepillars. It is very frustrating to say the least can anyone shed some light into what is eating them & advise me how to get rid of what ever it is please? I have lived in the Redlands before with 47 different bushes & never had this problem. I would post a photo but I can't work out how to do it.

Hi caric, welcome to Rosetalk, I'm sure you will enjoy being here. Now, what you have described, I would say your roses are being visited by the Leaf Cutter Bee. The semi circle cut outs on the leaf is a dead give away. They are seasonal, they won't hurt your plants and there is really nothing you can do to stop them. We all have this problem, they actually use the leaf to make nests.

Welcome to the forum Caric.........

is this what you are talking about.......?


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Yes!!! that is the bites exactly. Wow never had this one before. Why do my pest sprays not help? Is there something I can get for it? Also what I am worried about is as they are young bushes will this thing eat the new shoots?

That's pretty amazing isn't it but annoying at the same time. It just makes my bushes look terrible.

I haven't found anything that kills them, mainly because they are harmless and only bite the leaves....they don't stripped your bushes or eat the new shoots.......you will probably find they only touch certain bushes.....with mine...they only hit one bush......the only annoying thing I find is when I show roses from that bush, I have honeymoon cuts in the leaf.....

This is the nest they make of the leaves...

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Like John leaf cutter bees only attack the leaves of only one rose bush in my garden this being the pink Paul  Shirville. Although a little unsightly the damage is superficial.

The leaf cutter likes our Joyfulness

I have noticed that they prefer the Black Caviar to all the others however the only one they leave alone is my Just Joey for some reason. Can't work that one out.

You will find red spider mite also prefer some cultivars to others.

A couple of our roses have been attacked by Leaf Cutters for the first time this year.

Oh, they're the good guys! Yeah, they eat your leaves a bit, but they don't really do any harm, and they do a lot of good! They'll go away on their own soon until next year.

Just try not to worry about them, and if they make you sad, just smell the roses and try to think about all the good stuff they do

Yup, I'm with Zoe on this one. But then, I have honey bees and so I like bees.

At least the chewed leaf doesn't die off (like with blackspot) or contain an "infection" (like "leaf curl" on peaches) which means the plant can still grow and be healthy with working leaves.

Caric, if you are still around the leaf cutter bee is seasonal so I think there is no worries now, let us know if you are still having worries.